Situation Normal All Fouled Up
by Kerrigas
Summary: Short snippets examining the relationship between Merriell "Snafu" Shelton and Eugene "Sledgehammer" Sledge in the midst of the chaos of war. Rated for violence and language.
1. Chapter 1

**.:Author's Note:.** Upon watching HBO's The Pacific and reading E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed, I was struck in particular by the relationship between Sledge and Merriell "Snafu" Shelton. Throughout the book, Snafu was the only one of Sledge's fellow infantry mates that he repeatedly references by name. He never explicitly calls Snafu a friend but always demonstrates the utmost respect he and his fellow Marines had for the Gloucester veteran. While I never had the privilege of knowing these men in person before their passing, and cannot claim to understand what they went through or the finer points of their relationship, I was compelled to write these short snippets in honor of these men and the friendship between comrades in arms. The content of these stories may play on events from Sledge's book, The HBO miniseries, or my own imagination. Quotes with an asterisk (*) are pulled directly from the book or miniseries. While I realize the real Merriell Shelton may have looked and acted very different from Rami Malek's portrayal in The Pacific, I am basing my characterization primarily on Malek's. Thank you for reading!

Chapter 1

...

I can't say I particularly liked Merriell "Snafu" Shelton upon our first meeting. There was a distinctive arrogance about Shelton that reminded me of the conceited Seniors from high school who descended upon the younger boys with malicious words and mean looks. I knew Shelton was my senior in the war, a veteran of Gloucester who had already undergone his share of fear, filth, and death, but it did not excuse, in my opinion, the haughty comments and general disregard for the replacement marines. I also knew that Shelton knew how much I disliked him, because the Corporal had his eye on me from the start, and seemed to waste the majority of his breath on chewing me out. He reamed me non-stop for the way I carried my gun, for the time it took to set up the mortar, for my reluctance to smoke. "I'll bet you two bits, Sledgehammer, that before this day is over you'll be smokin' the hell out of every cigarette you can get your hands on.*" And it was always in that heavy Cajun drawl, the mere sound of which was beginning to irk me.

Snafu Shelton did not appear threatening in the slightest – in fact, even at my meager five-foot-nine inches, I estimate I could've taken Shelton on in a fist-fight. He was lean, and his hunched posture always made him look smaller, but there was an emptiness to his eyes that always made me hesitate. Then, Shelton would grin at me, that arrogant all-knowing grin, and saunter away with a cigarette pressed between his lips, and the moment of hostility would pass. I would deflate and remember that my drill sergeant at boot had been far worse. But still, there was always something about Shelton that put me on edge.

Shelton and I, of course, had been assigned to the same gunner crew. On D-day at Peleliu, Shelton carried the forty-five pounds of mortar slung over his shoulder, and I the heavy ammo bag and my carbine. As the amphibious vehicle drew closer to the beach, shells whistling overhead, artillery pounding the beach like an oncoming thunderstorm, Shelton grinned at me and touched his helmet in some mockery of a cowboy's farewell. But when our amtrac hit the beach and an NCO yelled at us to get out and get off the beach, I followed Shelton right off that vehicle, and right into the thick of Hell. I ran across that beach as bullets, shrapnel, and coral dust raining upon thousands of brave, terrified marines. I stumbled and gasped and prayed my way across that beach to a shallow defilade and huddled beside a small band of soldiers, all shaking, trembling, cursing, praying whether greenhorns or veterans amidst the barrage, until an NCO yelled at us to move.

"Somebody gimme a cigarette,*" I yelled, and of course, Shelton caught my eye and barked a laugh. "I toldja you'd start smokin', didn't I, Sledgehammer?*" Shelton pulled a cigarette pack from the pocket of his jacket – dusted with shattered coral – and lit two, holding one out to me. And as I drew on that cigarette, hands shaking so hard I had to hold it with three fingers, I laughed, and Shelton became Snafu to me after that.

…


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Snafu had trouble sleeping. He looked like a man who had trouble sleeping. His eyes were always heavy and rimmed red, with dark bags creasing below dark eyes. During nights under fire, he was restless and ground his teeth audibly. Heck, none of us ever slept well. What I wouldn't have given, on those nights, to be back in boot or even on the LST 661 landing ship, sleeping on a dry cot instead of huddled in a damp foxhole with mud seeping through my trousers and artillery fire jerking me awake every few minutes.

One calm night as I sat on watch, a shudder and whisper of foliage from nearby caught my attention. My grip on Snafu's .45 caliber rifle tightened as I focused all my attention on the noise. Two, no, three figures burst from the darkness, screaming in Japanese, but even then I couldn't see them clearly as they passed in and out of the shadows of the dark. I switched off the safety, and heard Snafu jerk to attention and flatten himself beside me in the foxhole, his hand on the kabar knife driven at close reach into the earth. I saw movement, and aimed the rifle, finger touching the trigger. I couldn't fire for fear of hitting a fellow marine in a closer foxhole. The Jap went down at a shot from another hole. I heard a cry of alarm several meters to my right as another Japanese soldier threw himself into another foxhole. There was a moment of grunting and a wailing cry, and then silence. Blood pounding, I almost didn't notice the Jap charging straight at us until he was nearly in our hole. By the time I'd swung the rifle around, he'd jumped in, screaming, and charged me with his bayonet. Startled, I blocked with my rifle, weeks of drill instructions guiding my hands to parry in a way that prevented the Jap from ripping the weapon from my hands and gutting me in a second. The Jap suddenly jerked back, straightened, and choked, dropping the bayonet. Snafu stood right behind him, his kabar driven deep in the Nip's neck. He pulled it out, and the enemy dropped like a rock, black blood pouring from his mouth as he shuddered and finally stilled.

Snafu and I were breathing fast, and my hands, still wrapped right around the rifle, trembled so violently I might be having a fit. A star shell went up from our side over the jungle, and in the dim light I saw Snafu's teeth bared in a vicious facsimile of a smile. After a few moments, a non-com snuck over to check on us. When I asked him if anyone had been hit, he said O'Brien had taken a bayonet to the face, but would recover. He glanced down at the dead Jap in our hole, gave us a tight smile and a thumbs up, and slipped back into the darkness. Snafu and I were left in the dark with our dead Jap. Come the heat of the morning, the body would bloat and stink, so we heaved the body up over the edge of our hole, but not before Snafu had liberated it of a muddy flag and bayonet knife. The prone corpse stared into our hole for the rest of the night, and as much as I wanted to get up and turn the head away, I dared not and looked resolutely away. Snafu lit us a pair of cigarettes and grinned and said, "There's the _banzai_ we was promised. We need more damned troops up here."

…


End file.
